Col and Dan are both in-between breaks and decided to catchup to see how things have been progressing. In today's episode we cover: Getting back into hobbies - Warhammer and BasicFantasy RPG Col's business partner, Charles, has completed a rebuild of the Userlot marketing website, and it's looking good! Dan has an MVP and is prepping to start alpha…

When it comes to building a SaaS product, one option is to build a tool, or a service or some sort of enhancement to an existing platform. Is this a good thing? Can it help you? Are there risks involved? What can go wrong? On today’s show, we talk about some of the pros and cons of setting up shop on top of somebody else’s lawn. We go into why it w…

We launched our hiring app, HappyHire, to help companies hire without bias. While celebrating, Caleb was sending some sick lines on his bike and bit it. Though battered, bruised, and one-armed, we persevered to launch HappyHire on schedule. Caleb is slowly mending and the rest of us remain unscathed...for the moment! Chat with us if you need help h…

Shout out to Morten Stensland for the inspiration for this show's topic - We discuss the ethics of copying and cloning in Indiehacking. [02:00] - Userlot Catchup [06:36] - Dan's Catchup [10:49] - Shoutout and Intro to Main Topic & Disclaimers (copying in Indiehacking) [13:50] - Big picture - Layers of Innovation [15:55] - Copyright, trademarks, Pat…

We chat about design UI and UX with Nathan Powell and discuss wether technical founders can learn to be good Product Designers. [01:00] - Intro to Nathan Powell and today's topic - Design [02:28] - Nathan's Background [05:20] - Definitions, Product, UI/UX & Engineering [09:54] - Nathan's Experience on dealing with Developer built designs [15:30] - …

Between cleaning peanut butter out of his mouth with club soda and building an AI, Caleb’s been busy. Speaking of busy, we've built our hiring app and are just about ready for testing/launch. (00:00) - 025 (01:04) - Intro (03:42) - Recap of Values Based Hiring (05:47) - How Would a New User Use Our Hiring App? (06:52) - Caleb Wants The Company Card…

We chat about positioning and niches and focus on how applicable this is to a startup or not. We run through April Dunford's positioning framework from her book 'Obviously Awesome' [00:35] - Intro - And Dan & Colin are catching up in IRL!! [01:59] - Long weekend activities [04:29] - Dan's update on his SAAS [05:20] - Update on Userlot & Positioning…

We heard from a listener, two actually. We discuss how our hiring app idea might resonate with fellow values oriented companies and what our next steps are for validating the idea. (00:00) - 024 - Getting Feedback On Our Hiring App (02:45) - Intro (03:21) - Emails From Listeners (04:39) - Feedback on our Hiring App Idea (10:38) - Building a Communi…

We pick up into our second installment of our Mini series on Saas hosting - This time focusing on Functions as a Service (Faas) [00:35] - Intro & Quick Catchup [04:40] - Main Topic - Functions as a Service [07:45] - Overview the available providers [14:00] - Faas and Scaling [15:35] - Pricing [22:05] - Use cases [26:50] - How could you start and so…

Very special episode with a great guest, Tobias Arweiler from the Code & Conquer Podcast [00:35] - Intro to Tobias, the Push to Prod crew & the topic [04:10] - Why should we consider motivation in Indie Hacking? [11:40] - What does motivate you to build your own product? [21:20] - Are there things that reduce your motivation? What are they and how …

Colin's back from a family trip to the UK and catches up with Dan on Mother's day. [00:10] - Intro [01:00] - Colin's UK trip - Nothing technical here peeps :) [06:06] - Dan get's BLOCKED! [10:32] - Do we speak to fast? [11:45] - Technical challenges and building Userlot [20:16] - Dan builds a marketing site [28:00] - Chat on Devs like to use new th…

Caleb, Daila, and Jonathan discuss building a community backyard sharing marketplace and how to gather an audience of folks who would want to build similar marketplaces. (00:00) - 023 - We Plan Validation (00:41) - Intro (01:58) - Thinking About A Local Marketplace (15:50) - How Will We Actually Build a Course? (19:01) - Outro The Products: Raisonn…

Colin's on a family trip to the UK so this is our first experiment in a series of episodes on Saas Hosting - focusing on PAAS - Platform as a Service. [00:35] - Intro [02:00] - Story telling background of Cloud hosting and PAAS [05:15] - Pros of using a PAAS [10:55] - Cons of using a PAAS [17:33] - What PAAS options are out there? [19:00] - Why use…

We're a week behind but we make up with it with a recap of Microconf 2023 [00:35] - Intro [02:50] - Background on Microconf and overall impressions [06:40] - Pre-Microconf adventures [09:00] - Microconf - Take away 1 - The welcoming nature of Microconf [18:24] - Microconf - Take away 2 - The actionable talks of Microconf [30:49] - Microconf - Take …

We hired someone who listens to the podcast. We also hint at a new app we're building for festival badges. (00:00) - Podcast (01:26) - Introduction (02:19) - Expanding Our Audience One Farm Dog At A Time (04:19) - Expanding Our Team One Listener At A Time (08:10) - Close to Launching an Event Badge App (12:39) - Updates On The Hiring App (14:36) - …

Our usual catchup on the week and then we chat about our upcoming mini-series on SaaS Production Hosting. [00:45] - Intro and the Easter [04:10] - Userlot Update [08:30] - Userlot positioning & microconf chat [11:16] - Saas Production Hosting [13:26] - Mini-series discussion [30:10] - Microconf Excursion -- Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow …

Caleb, Daila, and Jonathan chat about how we built a hiring app that we hope to productize. We're also going to eat our own dog food and use it for some hiring that we anticipate having to do. (00:00) - 021 - We Built a Hiring App (00:35) - Introduction (02:13) - Taxes (03:22) - Daila Does Her Homework (04:39) - Daila Built the Hiring App (11:25) -…

Our usual catchup on the week and then we chat podcasts. Why we listen, what our favourites are and other subjects. [00:45] - Intro and the weekend [03:25] - Userlot Update [06:50] - Dan pushes to prod [08:28] - The Saas Playbook Kickstarter [10:00] - Audience building [14:00] - More weekly updates from Dan [15:15] - Userlot partnership beginnings …

This we catch up on how things have been going in the past week as well as discuss should Startups have a Vision, Purpose, Mission and Values? [01:00] - Intro and what's been up this week [06:17] - What is this all about? Purpose, vision etc? [08:22] - Have you done this before? [12:15] - Vision [15:20] - Purpose [19:20] - Mission [24:20] - Values …

We discuss meeting a fan of the podcast and how we're going to try to productize our hiring process. (00:00) - 020 - We Productize Hiring (00:50) - Introduction (01:05) - Daila met a fan (03:03) - Daila's homework (03:49) - Aiming for a new Little Robot website (09:01) - Can we productize our hiring process (15:10) - Can we build a marketplace cour…

Col gives an overview of Userlot and Customer Success and then we discuss funding options and why you might go down various paths. We touch on the SVB issues in the past week as well. [01:25] - Intro and what's been up this week [08:10] - Overview of Userlot & Customer Success [19:00] - Why Funding? [22:30] - Self Funding options [28:20] - External…

A general introduction to our new podcast We cover Backgrounds on each of us Why we’re doing the show; and… What to expect from the episodes ahead Reach us via Twitter: @pushtoprodpod Email: pushtoprodpod@gmail.comBy Colin & Dan

We launch a new educational game for Alberta schools teaching how to use cattle grazing as a tool for sustainable grassland management. We also talk a bit about AI and maybe our next game. Play the game: gotggame.ca Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.com Twitter: @twostoryrobot Instagram: @therobotfactorypod Follow Jonathan: @thejonotron Follow Cale…

Jonathan, Daila, and Caleb talk about a recent trip to Texas to start a new company helping with the issue of challenged books in Texas public school. (00:00) - We Went To Texas (01:22) - Introduction (02:04) - Caleb is nearly a fully formed human (03:39) - Jonathan went to Texas (09:11) - Applying lessons to other projects (15:54) - Outro Creators…

Jonathan and Caleb discuss how walking can help you think and code, how we make client gifts, and some random ideas for new businesses. (00:00) - 017 - Happy Holidays (02:21) - Intro (03:17) - Changing Newsletter Providers (05:13) - How to subscribe to the po dcast (06:26) - Holiday Gifts for Clients (08:58) - AI Art Biz Idea (12:50) - No-code tool…

Kristina Lorson taught herself Bubble and turned her clunky spreadsheet into a functioning app successfully transporting bands for 4 music festivals. In this first interview with Kristina we discuss the background pain that Kristina experienced and how she overcame some challenges to build the whole app herself. Traverse is well positioned to take …

Jonathan, Caleb, and Daila discuss our newest project, raisonne.gallery. What started as a client project has turned into one of our first real products. It aims to solve the needs of art galleries who want to share their collection online and with other galleries. [01:53] New Product for Art Galleries [03:28] Building a Custom Database for Kamloop…

We lucked into getting our first revenue generating Coda pack more-or-less paid for. Listen as guest Courtney Milligan shares how we build packs for Coda that export data to Excel and Google Workspace. [00:43] What is Coda [01:51] Tracking a saw mill in Coda [05:57] Courtney's background [08:32] Coda Packs [16:31] Paid packs [20:48] Working with Co…

Jonathan, Caleb, and Daila discuss how turning satellite imagery into animated gifs is like building property management software, in that it's just a bunch of random coincidence and that we can increase our likelihood of luck. [00:39] Building a dynamic image generator Bubble plugin [02:57] Can we take screenshots of Google Maps? (No) [08:51] Acco…

Daila couldn't make it on this episode, so Caleb and Jonathan explore some of the details of the free tier of OpenHouse.social, how easy it is to build forms with Tally.so, and if we might re-use the tech for OpenHouse.social to power a Bubble Plugin. Form builder: Tally.so The Product: OpenHouse.social Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.com Twitter…

For the first time, we now have three co-hosts. We discuss what "free" even means and what features we might want to change for OpenHouse.social to make a free tier and we discuss some light upcoming plans for the property management app. [03:01] What does free mean? [05:47] Should we make OpenHouse.social free (as in beer)? [08:53] We still want C…

Caleb was unable to make it after feeling a bit under the weather. So we introduce Daila Duford as another host of the show. Caleb is still going to be a host, he hasn't been replaced. We talk about how Daila and the Little Robot team was able to build one of the features for the new property management software in just an afternoon. We also discus…

Fresh off a trip to Disneyland, Caleb discovers he might be replaced as co-host of the podcast. Jonathan and Caleb decide it's probably best to just add more hosts and pivot to property management. We also talk about road signs. [00:27] Welcome back from Disneyland, Caleb [01:54] Caleb thinks he's getting replaced [03:48] We learn about the gap in …

Jonathan and Caleb sit down with Brendan Shaw to chat about OpenHouse.social and instead think about a pivot into a different product entirely. [00:39] Welcome Brendan [01:51] How does an 18 year old become a real estate agent? [07:51] On not trading hours for dollars [09:15] Give us your feedback Brendan Shaw [19:19] What part of Brendan's busines…

Jonathan and Caleb discuss how AI might be helpful for content writing and how agencies might use OpenHouse.social. Also, this episode shouts out to the moms that are listening. Hi Moms! Also, checkout our Instagram page, @therobotfactorypod for a collection of AI generated alternatives to our podcast cover art. If your interested in AI generated a…

Caleb and Jonathan talk about how satisfying it is to watch our animated image of the OpenHouse.social app working and other less important things, like a working billing system. [00:16] Maybe we are waiting too long to launch anything [04:08] We have a few of our Mom's subscribed to the newsletter 👋🏼 [05:07] OpenHouse.social is now live but how do…

Jonathan and Caleb share some progress updates and how we do image processing in the browser to cut costs. [01:23] Shower thoughts: reducing image size in the browser [06:44] Creating a user account and removing background from profile photos [12:28] We have a logo and a landing page The Product: OpenHouse.social Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.c…

Jonathan and Caleb chat with Vann De Marco, a real estate agent from Vancouver, to get his raw feedback from an early version of the OpenHouse.social tool. Vann tries generating a social media image for an actual listing of his while we watch. [00:35] Our guest, Vann De Marco [03:11] What's up with rising real estate prices? [04:25] Getting Vann to…

Jonathan and Caleb share the new domain that they purchased for the real estate product and discuss how writing good code could increase the acquisition price. [00:37] Costco will answer your questions [03:12] We bought the domain OpenHouse.social [04:56] Can we charge more for the app if the code is good? [09:30] How do we generate images dynamica…

Jonathan and Caleb discuss ideas for a name for the product and some of the technical details of how it is built. [00:48] We may have a name [03:02] Update on progress so far [04:34] How are we deploying this product [07:31] Trying out some new tech and how much time did it take [09:40] How much data can we share in the open [11:36] We could always…

Jonathan and Caleb discuss the first steps of their first product. They answer who is it for and what does it do. [01:07] What is the podcast about? [03:36] What is our first product? [07:13] What is our business model? [09:55] What tech are we using? [11:38] What do people currently do? [14:05] What are we calling this tool? [14:43] What's next? N…

Introducing The Robot Factory, a new podcast by Two Story Robot. We are sharing our journey as we attempt to build and sell a new startup. Follow along! Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.com Twitter: @twostoryrobotBy Jonathan Bowers, Caleb Sharp